Their responses were decidedly mixed, but one discussion stayed with me. When I asked Charles Sydnor, the owner of Braeburn Farm, about the urgency of climate policy for his industry—he had this to say:

"As a farmer, when we look at climate change there are two sides to the story – but we only really talk about one – namely the production of greenhouse gases. Yet agriculture should be part of the solution. I can take you to places right now where crops are grown year-after-year-after-year without tilling the land, and where there is increased carbon sequestration year-after-year. The ability of agriculture to play a role in climate mitigation is enormous. I look forward to a day when farmers get paid more for our ecological services than our products."

Sydnor has a powerful point. While agriculture as it's currently practiced is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases, focusing solely on farming as a problem undermines efforts to get the farming community on our side. Given that the industry relies heavily on a stable, predictable climate for its viability, farmers are already a natural ally for climate activists. But in case that motivation is not enough, we thought we'd look at a few other ways that farming can be part of the solution, not just the problem.

Soil has the potential to store huge amounts of carbon. As explored in Jeremy's post on ploughing's dark secret, however, every time soil is turned over, large amounts of that carbon are released into the atmosphere. Add to that the damage done to soil structure, water retention and soil biodiversity, and you start to understand why no-till farming is such an attractive proposition.

Planting crops directly into the soil, surrounded by crop residues from previous plantings, allows farmers to save time, fuel, and labor—and decreases the amount of fertilizer that's needed too. With the potential of adding carbon credits to no-till farmers' income stream too, Sydnor's dream of farmers being paid for their ecological services does not seem such a pipe dream after all.